Because You Love Me (18 page)

As she peered over the back of the seat, she saw the Mercedes that had been chasing them burst into flames, the entire car engulfed in mere seconds. It had struck a tree, the car nearly sliced in half.

“The man?” she asked. “Isn’t he—” She paused, unable to think of the man burning to death.

Mark shook his head. “I doubt he survived the crash, Bridget.”

His words made sense. The car had been mangled beyond recognition.

For several moments, they sat spellbound in the middle of the road, watching the car burn. Shock permeated her body, accompanied by unbelievable relief. They were alive. They’d survived. Glancing down, she opened her clenched fist and looked at the flash drive Rodney had handed her. Had they all survived?

So much violence. So much death. All because of what was contained on that small piece of plastic.

Matt’s cell phone rang and they jumped. Matt ran a hand over his face. “Fuck. I think I just lost twenty years off my life.”

Mark’s hand landed on his brother’s shoulder. “At least you still have twenty to lose.”

Matt nodded. “We’re alive.”

It was an obvious statement, and yet his tone proved he was as amazed by that fact as Bridget.

His phone continued to ring. Digging it out of his pocket, he answered. “Yeah.”

He was silent as the person on the other end spoke. “We’re fine, but you might want to send a police car out to Old Mill Road. There’s a dead hit man on the hairpin curve.”

Bridget whispered, “Rodney.”

Matt nodded that he’d heard her, but continued to listen to the caller. “I’ll tell her,” he finally said as he hung up.

“Who was that?” Mark asked.

“Jake. He’s at the hospital with Rodney. Caleb was on duty, thank God, and he’s with him. The bullet lodged in his arm. He lost a lot of blood, and while the damage is pretty extensive, Caleb doesn’t think it’s life-threatening.”

Bridget released a soft sob. Rodney wasn’t going to die.

“Hey, sweetheart.” Matt wrapped his arm around her shoulders, misreading her response. “Caleb knows his stuff. If he says Rodney will be okay, he will.”

“I, I know,” she replied through choked sobs. “I w-was j-just so scared.”

Mark lifted her face, cupped her cheek and offered her a comforting smile. “It’s going to be okay.”

She swallowed heavily. For the first time in a long time, she believed those words. “I want to go see him.”

“No.” Matt looked at Mark. “Jake said Rodney was insistent we make that flight. Said under no circumstances should we bring Bridget back to Saratoga.”

“What?” she said. “No, no way. I’m going back there. I want to be with him.”

Matt sighed. “Bridget. We’re under the gun here. The judge’s trial is due to start in two days. The New York police department wants you back there and in protective custody now. Rodney said the attorneys are going to want to see that flash drive. We have to go to the airport.”

She wiped away a stray tear. “I can’t leave him here alone. Please don’t ask me to do that.”

Mark grasped her hand and squeezed it. “He won’t be alone. I know my kid brother. Jake will stay by his side until Rodney’s begging for privacy. That kid will stick like glue. You have my word.”

Bridget smiled at the thought. She doubted Rodney would ever want Jacob to leave. She’d seen the way they looked at each other. Though Rodney insisted he and the youngest James brother were nothing more than friends, Bridget knew there was something deeper there, waiting to emerge.

Mark put the truck in drive and turned it around. “We need to get to the airport or we’re never going to make our flight.”

Bridget suppressed a shiver as they drove by the wrecked vehicle. “What about him?”

Matt looked out the passenger’s window at the dying flames. “There’s nothing we can do for him now. Jacob said he’d send the police out here. Rodney knows who he was, so he can fill in the local law authorities. Other than that, they’ll just have to wait until we get back to Saratoga after the trial to answer any more questions about the details of the crash.”

Bridget sat up and buckled her seat belt. She caught sight of her reflection in the rearview mirror. There were scratches on her face. She reached up to touch them.

Mark caught her motion. “Some bullets broke the bricks on the side of the bank.” He held up his left arm, showing her his scratches. “I caught some of those little shattered bits too.”

She shivered, partially because of the cold from the broken rear window and partially from fear.

They’d come so close to dying. So very, very close.

They sat in silence as Mark drove. There were no more words left to say.

They’d found the flash drive.

Rodney had been shot.

They’d almost been killed.

She was going home.

A million different thoughts flashed through her mind, none of them landing for long. She was tired of being scared, of being cold. If she could simply walk the last few steps—testify at the trial—her months-long nightmare would be over. It would all be over. Matt and Mark would return to Wyoming and she would be free to return to her normal life.

She was close. So very, very close.

But to what?

Chapter Eleven

Bridget walked out of the courtroom and pulled her winter coat around her more tightly. It was a bright, sunny day in March, but she couldn’t tell it by the temperature. The weatherman had reported this morning they could expect a bone-chilling day. He’d been right. She suspected the red dial wouldn’t touch the twenty-degree mark.

However, even the cold couldn’t freeze the warmth radiating inside her. The jury had deliberated less than four hours. They’d found Lucian Thompson guilty of first-degree murder. The crooked judge was facing life in prison for his crime, and Lyle’s murder trial was just the first of a long line of court appearances the man faced. Thanks to the information her friend had discovered, the judge was also facing multiple charges of bribery, corruption and coercion. Arrest warrants had been issued for nearly three dozen more criminals as well. Justice had at last been served.

Her solitude only lasted a moment as several people caught sight of her and swarmed. The first to reach her was the Commissioner of the New York City police force. “You and Rodney did a big service for this city. Tell him when you talk to him, his job is waiting for him.”

She nodded. While the offer was wonderful and everything Rodney had hoped for, she wished it hadn’t come at so high a price. “I’ll tell him.”

Several reporters surrounded her, but only one familiar face stood out. Bridget’s editor in chief at
The Reporter
walked up to her. “You did an amazing job with your testimony. I’m sure that’s what prompted the fast decision. Listen, I was thinking, what if you wrote up a multi-article exclusive on this case from beginning to end for the paper? We’ll run it on the front page over the next few weeks.”

“Front-page articles?” she asked.

“Yeah, you’ve earned them. And Bridget, I’m promoting you from the weekend girl to the news team. You can clean out your cubicle on Monday and move your stuff upstairs to a real office. I’ll even throw in a nice raise.”

She was stunned. She’d landed the promotion she’d wanted for years, but strangely it didn’t make her as happy as she’d expected it would. “Thank you.” Clearly, she just needed time to process. Too many incredible things were coming at her too quickly.

Several other reporters from larger papers, including the
Times
and the
Post
, struggled to get closer, all of them yelling questions at her. Cameras began flashing.

“Bridget,” a familiar voice shouted. Looking to her left, she spotted Matt in his cowboy hat waving at her. “Over here, sweetheart. We’ve got the car.”

She fought her way through the pack, simply saying the words “no comment” over and over until she reached Matt. He tucked her securely by his side, using his size and strength to battle the rest of the way to the car. Mark was waiting at the curb with the engine running as Matt opened the back door, helped her in and then crawled in beside her.

As he slammed the door, more cameras flashed and more reporters descended.

“Get us the hell out of here, Mark,” Matt demanded when it looked like they’d surround the vehicle.

Mark pulled out into traffic, causing a taxicab to slam on its brakes and blare the horn. “Jesus,” he muttered. “The drivers in this city are fucking crazy.”

He’d had the same complaint this morning. The lawyers had hoped a verdict would be reached today. They’d suggested she bring her own transportation home rather than risk being followed by the swarms of reporters onto the subway system. It had been good advice.

“Maybe you should pull over and let me take it from here,” Bridget suggested when she noticed Mark’s white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. She’d learned to drive on these mean streets. She could maneuver her way through traffic like a pro.

Mark shook his head, then mumbled another curse when a large truck cut into his lane. “No. I’ll get us back to your apartment.”

She grinned. Her guys had been troopers, accompanying her to New York, staying in her tiny apartment under protective custody with her. They’d endured the traffic jams, crowds, and dreary weather. She’d never seen two men less attuned to life in the city, yet they’d never complained once. Never been anything less than completely supportive of her and what she needed to do.

“Who were the guys talking to you before the horde of reporters descended?” Matt asked.

“Oh. One man was the police commissioner. He wanted me to tell Rodney his job would be waiting for him after he recuperated.”

Neither man replied to that. They all knew Rodney faced a long road to recovery before that could happen. His arm had been badly injured by the bullet, many of the nerves destroyed. Caleb had confided last night on the phone he feared Rodney would never recover full use of the arm.

Bridget’s heart ached at the thought. Rodney had risked his life and his career to keep her safe. In the end, he’d nearly died taking a bullet meant for her, and now perhaps he’d never be able to use his arm again. It wasn’t fair.

Chalk up another strike against her and her damn ambition. Lyle gave his life so that she could achieve her dream job, and now there was a good chance Rodney had sacrificed his own future for her. How many lives had she wrecked in her attempts to get what she wanted?

“Who was the other fella? The one in the cheap suit?”

She laughed at Matt’s description. Her editor in chief was the epitome of bad taste, complete with long sideburns and a comb-over. “My boss.” She swallowed heavily, then continued, “He offered me a promotion to the news staff, my own office, even a raise.”

“Hey,” Mark said, glancing in the rearview mirror at her. “That’s great.”

“Yeah,” she said. The news didn’t feel any better now than it had when she’d been offered the job. In fact, it felt terribly wrong. A year ago she would have been dancing in the street after such an offer.

It was Lyle’s last gift to her. She’d gotten exactly what she’d always wanted. The old saying “Be careful what you wish for…” drifted through her mind. How could she turn the job down knowing it was Lyle’s greatest hope for her? That he’d given his life so that she’d have this chance?

Even Rodney had risked his own career to see her brought safely back to New York, to this future. Rodney’s voice drifted through her mind.
You’ll be the greatest reporter New York City has ever seen.

They rode in silence the rest of the way to her apartment, the quietness stifling.

Matt took her hand as they walked up the stairs to her third-floor apartment. It was the first time since her return to the city there hadn’t been a cop positioned outside her door.

“Free at last,” she whispered.

Matt squeezed her hand.

They entered the apartment. The second the door closed behind him, Mark reached for her arm and pulled her into his embrace. He kissed her so hard her lips stung. She relished the pain, shared his need for raw, hard, no-holds-barred sex.

She gripped the hem of Mark’s long-sleeved shirt and pulled it over his head. Matt was behind her in an instant, ripping first her coat, then her shirt off with haste.

“Naked,” Mark demanded. None of them needed more instruction than that. She unhooked her pants, stripping them off with her panties. Matt and Mark followed suit, and within seconds they were all undressed and reaching for each other.

Mark dropped to his knees in front of her, lifting her legs over his shoulders, holding her open to his hungry mouth as Matt supported her weight with strong arms wrapped around her chest. He gripped her breasts roughly, pulling and squeezing the aching flesh as he placed a long line of hot, wet kisses along the side of her neck. She felt him suck the sensitive skin beneath her ear and knew he was marking her. She didn’t care. She wanted the world to know, needed them to know, that she belonged to these two men, and that they belonged to her.

Mark’s tongue drove into her dripping pussy and she cried out. He fucked her with his lips, his teeth, his tongue, driving her to the now familiar heights she’d never achieved with another man. These men were made for her.